


landslide

by writerlily



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 02:04:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11957415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerlily/pseuds/writerlily
Summary: Maybe her silent shoes are why Matt doesn't hear her entering the building. Maybe. Maybe not because his attention is--ahem-- otherwise occupied by the woman he's kissing.





	landslide

**Author's Note:**

> I love pain, so why not some Karedevil angst? Thanks for reading <3

Her chest caves in. 

Not literally because god, then she would be dead. 

She kind of wishes she was though, in this situation. But then that's a bit dramatic, even for her.

Karen wears soft lined ballet flats. 

They remind her of a simpler time-- when she was young-- and wanted to be a ballerina. The graceful way they moved and glided entranced her. The long stretch of their limbs. She was eight when she started taking lessons and nine when she had to quit them because her parents couldn't afford them anymore-- who knew that tutus and pointe shoes cost _so_ much-- and Karen had to abandon that little dream of hers. 

It doesn't stop her from wearing ballet styled shoes though, even now as she's well into womanhood. The ones she's wearing are a dusty pink color, with a little bow at the top. They're the most comfortable shoes she wears. The fit, the style, but especially the way the soles of her feet seem to silently and gently press kisses on the ground she walks on. 

Maybe her silent shoes are why Matt doesn't hear her entering the building. Maybe. Maybe not because his attention is-- _ahem_ \-- otherwise occupied by the woman he's kissing. 

It's only when the door behind her shuts, does Matt seem to snap out of it, his head whipping to face her. Karen knows that he's blind, but she instantly knows when his eyes lands on her face and it begins to register to him exactly who is standing by the door. 

Matt's hair is disheveled, sticking up in tufts that make him look like a child and Karen almost wants to smile. There's a smudge of mauve colored lipstick on his mouth and chin and cheek and neck... 

Karen stops her eyes from roaming, especially because his tie is loose and the top buttons of his white shirt are undone. 

"Karen," Matt clears his throat. He pants in that way of his that signals-- not exhaustion-- panic. He's like a child getting caught with his hand in a cookie jar. 

Said cookie jar stands behind Matt and looks positively unbothered by being disrupted. She's a beautiful woman, Karen can see that, with olive skin and smoldering black eyes. And she has a small smirk playing at her lips. The way she eyes Matt is positively predatory and Karen gulps.

Karen tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "Sorry to interrupt," she laughs nervously and chews on her bottom lip. Her forced laugh seems to snap Matt out of whatever little thing is going on in his head. He stands straight and fixes his shirt. "I was coming by to pick up a few things from the office. I left them there the other night and I realized I needed them to prepare our depositions because Foggy didn't have enough time so he asked me to do it and I said yes, of course."

She's rambling-- she knows it-- and she stops herself, pressing her lips together in a way that's almost painful. 

"I'm just going to go up to the office," she says in a rush so the sentence sounds like one long word that has her out of breath. She makes her way to the stairwell because the damn elevator in this place never works. Karen vaguely hears Matt call after her, but she ignores his voice. She practically runs up the stairs, taking two steps at a time, and hates herself for not being more active because by the time she reaches the office she's a sweaty mess. 

Her heart is racing and a strangled laugh bubbles up her throat. She slaps a hand over her mouth, annoyed at the tightening in her chest. 

Matt always kept her at arms length. Their dates didn't change that. It's like she was only ever getting a sliver of Matt Murdock here and there, and not the whole deal, not the _truth_ and Karen sighs. It's a painful little sound, made worse by the heavy feeling that settles over her chest. 

She shuffles into the office, thankful that Matt hasn't come up. The small, hysterical part of herself threatens to cry, and its so silly to feel the knot forming in her stomach. They were never-- never _exclusive_. It's not like they were boyfriend and girlfriend, and god it's so juvenile that Karen really does laugh then. 

It was obvious that whoever the woman was, she knew Matt in a way that Karen probably never will. If Matt was allowing the woman to be so close to him, and for him to be so uninhibited with her, then maybe the woman was the real reason Karen and Matt wouldn't work. 

It's a painful realization to know that Matt's heart probably belongs to another and Karen feels foolish for thinking that she could've ever been that someone. 

Karen is in the middle of compiling her documents when the door squeaks open. She pauses her movements for a second, before continuing. Her heart rate is speeding up and Karen calmly places the documents in a box. 

She hears his footsteps. They're slow and unsure and Karen feels the same. _Unsure_. _Hesitant_. 

But his footsteps continue and when she looks up from the box, Matt stands in the doorway. It's impossible to tell what he's thinking when he has those glasses on. She likes it better when he doesn't have them on. It makes it easier for her to actually see him and read him. Karen muses that his glasses are another type of armor for him. Another way to keep people from knowing who Matt Murdock really is. 

Looking at him kind of breaks her heart and she clears her suddenly dry throat. "Listen," she says right as he starts to say something but she cuts him off. _Like ripping a bandaid_. "You don't have to explain anything to me. I'm going to take my stuff and head out, okay?"

It's simple, to the point. She doesn't want to talk about what happened down there, even though every instinct in her body is telling her to say fuck the documents and, god, have another fight with him. But the other larger part of her is just so _tired_. She's exhausted from going round and round in circles with Matt that just for today, she doesn't want to fight or argue about why he continuously pushes her away and why he was kissing someone else in the lobby of their building a week after he told her he couldn't be with her, couldn't be with _anyone_.

He's still standing like a statue, unmoving, and Karen thinks for a second that he might not even be breathing. So she picks up her box and goes to move past him, but she can't leave because his arm darts out and gently tugs her elbow to him. 

His face is downcast and from this close she can see the minuscule wrinkles in his face, the five o clock shadow growing across his jaw. But she can also see the smudges of lipstick that he failed at hastily rubbing off, if a glance at his pinkened sleeve is anything to go by. 

It only pokes at the wound, really, and Karen tries pulling her arm away from him to no avail. 

"It wasn't what it looked like," he says, voice careful and quiet like he's trying not to scare her off. 

Karen scoffs. The sound is harsh compared to the gentle tone of Matt's voice. "You realize that's what all men say when they've been caught doing something they're not supposed to be doing."

"She's an old friend," he tries explaining, some desperation leaking into his voice. 

Karen cuts him off. "I don't want to know," she says, only sort of telling the truth. She's a journalist and an investigator and information is her best friend. Of course she wants to know who the woman was, how long she's known Matt, how much she _means_ to him. But to admit that seems like losing somehow, and Karen can't deal with that right now. Not after she's already had so many losses with Matt. "You don't need to explain and I-- I don't think I can hear it."

She moves and this time Matt let's go of her. "You don't understand," he says, voice on the edge of pleading. Pleading for what though, Karen isn't sure of. It seems like there's everything and nothing between the two of them. 

"We're not together-- or, or dating, anymore, or whatever the hell it was we were doing," she says and Matt flinches. "You don't have to explain."

"She's just--," he pauses to rake his fingers through his hair, and he begins to pace across the small office, while Karen stands there with her pathetic box in her hands. And she's being pathetic too, still standing there when she can freely leave. "She's someone from my past."

That's what he comes up with and Karen can only throw her head black. "Matt," she says, hating the pain she feels at saying his name out loud and seeing the way his head snaps up to look at her. 

"It doesn't matter. It's okay," she sighs tiredly. "I mean it. You don't have to explain. This is obviously another part of yourself that I don't have the business of knowing. I get it."

And suddenly she does get it. Because that's always what the problem is between them. There's always something that happened, or something happening, that they can't fully tell each other about. It's about as real as they can get with each other, and it's unfortunate too because it doesn't take them very far. 

Matt reaches a hand out, like he wants to hold her hand. But he drops his arm back to his side and clenches his hand into a fist instead. 

"She wasn't around when you and I--," he falters. Clears his throat and rubs his jaw. He's tense. Karen can see the stiffness of his shoulders. Matt is always like a coiled spring, begging for release. "She's not why you and I aren't together."

Karen frowns. "Somehow that doesn't make me feel better."

Matt laughs, but it's hollow, and an entirely self deprecating sound. "I suppose not," his jaw twitches. Karen's urges to run a finger across his cheek. His face had been soft the night that they kissed in front of her apartment. 

"You move on very fast, Mr. Murdock," she says, half joking, half angry. Mostly sad. The joke falls flat, no surprise there.

Matt picks up on the tone of her voice and shakes his head. "It's easier with her," he says, and _god_ , if that isn't him pouring a bucket of salt all over her wounds. "But not in the way you think. I've known her since we were children. We, uh, kind of grew up together," he says, then mumbles under his breath, "if you could even call it that."

Karen swallows and places her box down, because it's obvious that she's not leaving soon and her arms are starting to ache.

"Make it a habit of making out with childhood friends?" She asks, her arms hanging loosely at her sides. Matt looks just as uncomfortable as her, like they don't know where to place themselves with each other anymore. It had been so easy before, so light. 

Matt tilts his head, a wry smile on his face. "Not if I can help it."

It's a painfully honest confession and Karen is glad that Matt can't see the way her face falls, or the immediate reddening of her eyes. She's always worn her heart on her sleeve and it's both liberating and completely frustrating at the same time. 

"And you can't help it when it comes to her," she's surprised that her voice doesn't crack, or falter. Instead, her voice is a sad whisper, that Matt hears all the same. 

"It's not that I can't help it," he takes a step forward. It's tentative and cautious, but Karen doesn't move away from him and his shoulders slightly relax. "She-- she _knows_ me-- more than anyone. And so she knows how to bring out the best in me, but truthfully she prefers to brings out the worst in me." 

Karen casts her eyes down at his shoes. Shiny, spotless. She thinks of his apartment and the small supply of shoe cleaning items that she saw underneath his bathroom sink when she went snooping around. She had found it ridiculously endearing at the time and she can't begin to imagine what the _worst_ of Matt Murdock is like. It can't possibly compare to her-- to Karen-- who looks down at her hands and only sees dark red blood against the paleness of her skin. To Karen, who, when closing her eyes, sees a gunshot wound and a pool of blood. She sees a man with glasses talking one moment, lifeless the next. 

She wonders if she would bring out the worst in him as well.

"It's good to have someone who knows you, who knows all of you, good and bad," Karen says, feeling drained and more defeated than she has in a while. 

She's not mad anymore, or even upset. Maybe this was doomed from the start, from the moment she woke up in a pool of blood and met Matt with dried blood in her hair. It must've been an omen of sorts. Their story began with death. How could anything have grown from it? 

She sees the moment Matt realizes he's losing her and the pain is a mutual feeling they share because Karen knows she's lost him as well. 

"I told you that the people I let close to me only get hurt," his voice is flat. "I was right."

"That's the way of life. You give and you take and sometimes you get hurt in the process. It doesn't mean you close yourself off to living," she tilts his chin up with her finger. "Be careful, Matt. You keep going like that, then you're going to end up alone."

Matt pauses-- tilts his head curiously at her words-- and she doesn't try to figure out what his silence means this time. She drops her hand from his face. 

"She's beautiful," Karen says. The next part is painful for her to admit but it's a truth that she can give him, "And if she's lucky enough to already know the real you, then you shouldn't let her go." 

Karen leaves the office. The lobby is empty this time. The building is quiet and she does her best not to look back at it as she walks into the city and down the street. She tells herself not to look at the window where she knows their office is located.

The sun is shining and cars whizz by and Karen inhales deeply. Time is still moving, there's still life beyond the walls of Nelson & Murdock. 

There's still life beyond Matt.


End file.
